Inequality threatens social stability, warns new UN population chief

The Guardian
Liz Ford

UN population fund executive director Natalia Kanem: ‘We have a shot at this, if we work together and have the power of our convictions.’ Photograph: Friends of UNFPA

Natalia Kanem vows to take fight for women’s reproductive health to boardrooms and beyond as she rues ‘faulty and erroneous’ Trump funding cuts

The new head of the UN population fund has vowed to be more aggressive in promoting the agency’s message to business that protecting women’s reproductive health not only saves lives, but can boost earnings.

On her first visit to London after taking up the post of executive director of the UNFPA on 3 October, Natalia Kanem said she would take the message of no deaths in childbirth, no unintended pregnancies and no violence against women and girls “into the boardroom, cafeteria, wherever it is, so people understand that life-threatening consequences multiply into societal and economic consequences”.

Kanem said: “We do feel we have to make not only direct appeals, but also explain the power of what we are talking about.” Inequality is not just about childcare, she told the Guardian, but about the fact that “only about half of women in the world have paid jobs or have influence over their lives. It’s not too grandiose to say the stability of society is undermined by this.”

Last year, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) calculated that achieving the economic potential of women will require up to $2tn (£1.5tn) in incremental annual spending on essential services in 2025. But the economic gains could be six to eight times the outlay.

McKinsey also said $12tn could be added to the global economy by 2025 if women had equal opportunities in the labour markets.

But achieving this will require universal access to family planning, increasing school attendance, ending female genital mutilation and child marriage, and providing decent childcare, said Kanem. The UNFPA estimates that limited access to family planning translates into 89m unintended pregnancies and 48m abortions in poorer countries each year, which can limit women’s future ambitions.

Kanem, in London on Tuesday to launch the UNFPA’s annual state of the world population report, which focuses on inequality, acknowledges there is a mountain to climb to fulfil its mission, and limited resources to get there.

Even before President Donald Trump defunded the agency in April, the UNFPA estimated it was going to be about $700m short until 2020, as governments prioritised funding closer to home to deal with a refugee crisis, and the dollar dipped.

“For what we want to do, we were already behind the curve – and now we were plunged deeper into the hole,” she said about the decision to defund. Kanem said Trump’s move was a disappointment, knowing it was based on a “faulty and erroneous” understanding of the issues.

But she’s been heartened by the governments, foundations and other funders who have stepped into help meet the shortfall. The agency received $207m in pledges at the London family planning summit in July, which has taken it “part-way out of that hole”, said Kanem.

“It was marvellous that other countries stepped into the breach. We know the difference US money was making, particularly in Iraq and Jordan. We’d made promises to girls and women in the camps and we didn’t want to disappoint them.”

Kanem, a trained doctor and public health and human rights advocate, who served as acting executive director of the UNFPA after the death of Babatunde Osotimehin in June, said although there is still much to do, she is excited about the challenges.

“I feel there is a momentum. I actually feel we have a shot at this, if we work together and have the power of our convictions.”